Moutai, as the "C superstar" on the banquet table of Chinese people, with a market value of over trillion yuan, it takes at least five years from feeding to leaving the factory. In these five years, what kind of cultivation has a piece of grain experienced? Can it be turned into this cup of soy sauce? Let us walk into the Moutai production workshop and explore the secrets of Moutai brewing.
In the first winemaking workshop of Moutai, which has gone through 92 years so far, the local glutinous sorghum of Moutai is waiting for the first round of cooking and fermentation. The reason for choosing the local glutinous sorghum of Moutai is that only it can tolerate it. It can withstand nine times of cooking, eight times of fermentation, and seven times of wine extraction during the brewing process. Its high content of amylopectin and tannin makes the brewed liquor more mellow.
At 5 o'clock in the morning, the early brewers were on duty. They worked in pairs, and evenly filled the sorghum that had been moistened and placed into the retort. The method of the retort is light, loose, thin, accurate, uniform, and flat. The sommelier in the first workshop said: "When the retort is loaded, the steam must be suppressed in time, otherwise it will affect the quality and output, which is difficult to be replaced by the machine. , It requires accumulated craftsmanship."
Sorghum has been retorted, steamed and roasted, spread out, and then mixed with koji powder for accumulation and fermentation. The homemade high-temperature Daqu made by Moutai is refined from wheat. It undergoes stepping, fermentation, silo turning, and koji grinding, and is finally sprinkled into sorghum. Sorghum is stacked and fermented and then sealed in the cellar for anaerobic fermentation and recirculation until the first round of base wine is distilled. For the base wine that is brewed, the senior winemaker can estimate the degree of the wine based on the size and stabilization time of the hop.
The produced Moutai base wine is classified and finalized into the cellar for storage, and then sent to the wine body design center. The blender carefully researches each base wine, carefully designs and blends them, and combines these different ranks, different typical bodies, More than one hundred base wines of different degrees, different grades, different ages, and different tastes can be blended and combined to create a qualified Moutai, achieve a unified Moutai style, and achieve a combination of theory and practice, technology and The crystallization of art.
In the Moutai packaging workshop, the packaging process of Moutai has to go through dozens of processes such as bottle washing, filling, capping, labeling, and tying ribbons. Among them, tying the ribbon includes: one twist, two sets, three knots, four uniforms, five wears, six tightening, seven ties, eight stacks, nine straight ten steps, and the "ten-step method". The red and elegant ribbon is a highlight of Moutai. The characteristic, the tied ribbon is the same length on both sides, facing the "Mao" of "Kweichow Moutai" on the bottle.
As we all know, Moutai cannot be made without leaving Moutai Town. It is based on the unique valley topography of Maotai Town, the unique water quality of the Chishui River and the mysterious microbial community that the brewing of Moutai has natural genes that cannot be replicated. In recent years, Moutai's total investment in ecological protection has reached several billion yuan, which is to protect the "green lifeline" on which Moutai brewing depends.
The time and place are favorable, and people are more important. What makes Moutai famous in the world is probably the extreme exquisiteness of the production line. The strict adherence to quality is Moutai's longest and sincere commitment to consumers. , Moutai continues to expand and strengthen its national independent brand, promote high-quality economic development, establish a new development pattern, and let the mellow fragrance of Moutai continue to spread, fragrant China and the world.